Material: The Latest Architecture and News

Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) has announced Jingru (Cyan) Cheng as the recipient of the 2023 Wheelwright Prize, a study grant created to support globally-minded research and investigative approaches to contemporary architecture. The winning research project, titled “Tracing Sand: Phantom Territories, Bodies Adrift,” delves into the multifaceted impacts of sand mining and reclamation, understood from cultural, economic, and ecological perspectives. The unassuming material has become an indispensable element for our built environment and human communities, serving as a vital component in the production of glass, concrete, asphalt roads, and artificial land. Yet the process of dredging underwater systems and sand mining leads to the disruption of habitats in a process that simultaneously shapes one habitat while devastating another.

The Office for Political Innovation, led by Andrés Jaque, collaborated with a network of activists and community representatives from Xholobeni (South Africa), experts in seismographs and transduction from Poland, researchers, sound editors, and prop makers to bring a research-based installation at the Arsenale of the 18^th Venice Architecture Biennale. Titled ‘XHOLOBENI YARDS. Titanium and the Planetary Making of SHININESS / DUSTINESS,’ the intervention addresses architecture’s problematic fascination with shininess.

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Ambitious and diverse, models are representative tools non-exclusive to architects. Peculiar fascination with miniatures – and what they tell us about our larger world- extends to all ages, cultures, and purposes. From scaled temples of clay from 200 B.C. found in Mexico, ceramic models carried during medieval Islamic journeys, Victorian doll houses, and LEGOS, models are more than baby buildings. Miniatures unveil the essentials, explain much larger concepts, contain intimate and historical data, and invite us to challenge our known selves and perspective.

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The European Culture Center’s Time Space Exhibition during the Venice Biennale 2018 features a new short film depicting the spatial qualities of light in architectural design, both as a material and metaphor.

This collaboration between architect and professor Jorge L. Hernández and photographer Carlos Domenech explores their endeavors in providing a lighting-based design solution for the Williamsburg, Virginia courthouse. Battling the issues of security and privacy of the court with the need for natural daylight, Hernández recreated the cupola, a vernacular roof turret intended for ventilation for illumination instead. Light, entering the courtroom from above, transforms the previously dull space and becomes, “an allegory for justice”.

Young tech team (Bar Smith, Hannah Teagle, and Tom Beckett) has launched a Kickstarter campaign for Maslow, a four-by-eight-foot at home CNC cutting machine made to assist construction efforts by cutting user-specified shapes out of wood or any other flat material. Designed to be affordable—at under $500—easy to use, inclusive, and powerful, the project aims to share designs digitally so that you can build on the work of others or create your own from scratch.

Based on the design of the hanging plotter, Maslow “uses gear-reduced DC motors with encoders and a closed-loop feedback system to achieve high accuracy and high torque.”

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The wide range in which pieces of masonry can be arranged allows for multiple spatial configurations. Born in a furnace, the brick adorns and reinforces, protects and—to various degrees—brings natural light into spaces that need slight, natural illumination. 

Throughout history, traditional brick-laying consisted of predetermined arrangement of parts, and lines of rope to guide the consistency and placement of each individual brick. But there are many other ways to exploit this multi-faceted, timeless material, so we've selected 16 projects that demonstrate the potential of the humble brick. 

Below find 16 construction details from projects that use bricks in ingenious ways. 

This article is part of our new "Material Focus" series, which asks architects to elaborate on the thought process behind their material choices and sheds light on the steps required to get buildings actually built.

The Mipibu House, designed by Brazilian firm Terra e Tuma Arquitetos Associados, measures 170 square meters, and uses exposed concrete blocks to complement an expansive layout. Located in an unusually sized site in Brazil, a key element of the architects' design involved the consideration of the possible - or rather the inevitable - verticalization of nearby buildings. In response to this challenge, they designed a compact, complex design that answers the needs of their customer with creativity in the selection and use of materials. We talked with architect Danilo Terra to learn more about the choices of materials and the challenges of the project.

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A game-changing protective coating from Line-X has the power to make buildings virtually impenetrable. The spray creates a thin barrier which is watertight, abrasion and impact resistant and can withstand high temperatures; all of which combine to make it almost indestructible. The concoction deemed "Paxcon®," is stronger than steel, and can protect buildings from explosions or natural disasters such as earthquakes or storms.